apple | At Home with Tech

February 4, 2024

Will Apple Vision Pro Give Us the Future We Expected?

Is Apple’s spatial computing launch leading us to this vision of tomorrow? (Thanks to Adobe Firefly’s generative AI for helping me to visualize.)

No, I’m not running out to buy an Apple Vision Pro. Not yet. Not this year. Not at this price point. Yet I couldn’t be more excited about it. Yes, of course I really crave this mixed-reality headset. And I know that eventually, I’ll be wearing one. And that makes me so happy.

Believing this likelihood helps me reaffirm the possibility that we’ll make it to the promised future one day. Sometimes it still feels so 20th century.

1980, 1999 and 2001 are foundational science fiction dates that reality couldn’t live up to. We don’t have flying cars or undersea cities yet. Electric cars aren’t quite mainstream. We’re even having a hard time getting ourselves back to the moon without crashing.

Sure, I know that remarkable technological innovations do permeate throughout humanity every year. I sometimes just don’t feel it so much on a Monday morning.

Apple Changed my Life
You can say what you want about Apple as a marketing machine and its amazing ability to create an uncontrollable Pavlovian response for each of its new product lines. But its past shiny gear from the future did revolutionize how we computerized and accessorized.

Apple delivered big time.

Now, my Apple tech feels quite normal, and I’ve forgotten that I once existed without my Mac Studio, iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple Watch, iPad and AirPods.

I couldn’t imagine how to live without these devices, unless I chose to be off grid and banish myself to a tech-free isolation. (Luddites may form a line on the left to debate me on this.)

I need my Apple gear.

The Era of Spatial Computing Begins
Will the Vision Pro eventually become a must-have device too? Well, that’s the question today. The entire VR/AR category has been struggling to go mainstream for years. Maybe rebranding it to ‘spatial computing’ will help. (hmmm)

The Vision Pro won’t benefit quite as much from the FOMO factor. It doesn’t seem so portable to easily transport around for others to see you wearing (even though an Apple commercial demonstrates a happy woman wearing one on a plane).

It’s probably going to be a while until I’m surrounded by an army of Apple Vision Pros on a city street the same way I once experienced hundreds of AirPods orbiting and taunting me while I walked to work.

Thousands of people moving together on the streets of New York City, wearing Apple Vision Pros and experiencing augmented reality.

Now, that’s a vision of the future.

Affordability is Relative
I know today’s Apple Vision Pro is not perfect. It’s version 1. But the reviews I’ve read all agree it’s a huge leap forward compared to past headsets.

Of course, it is. That’s what Apple usually does.

And I know Vision Pro is only going to get better, and hopefully less expensive than its current $3,499 starting cost. Apple isn’t exactly known for dropping its prices, other than creating parallel products with older tech (iPhone SE).

On the other hand, how many thousands of dollars did many of us fork out for those early plasma HDTVs?

And remember that Apple Vision Pro is also a complete standalone computer… not just a mixed-reality headset.

Still, the price point is undeniably a limiting factor. And Apple must know this.

The Future has Arrived
I couldn’t be more excited about a product that I’m not buying, and I expect that I’m not alone.

I’m sure that Tim Cook has a plan to make Apple Vision Pro the next iPhone. And something tells me that V1 is all part of a long-term plan to draft me into the Vision Pro ecosystem.

It’s just a matter of time until I’ll be wearing the future on my face.

Borg Barrett is ready to be assimilated. No resistance from me.

And I’ll be smiling.

January 14, 2024

Is It Bad to Fully Charge your iPhone Every Night?

With new iPhones, now you have the option to throttle back the battery’s charging limit to just 80%. Is that good? Let’s find out.

Once upon a time, rechargeable batteries, however magical at the time, came with ‘memory’ problems. If you kept topping off your device with a bit electrical juice every day without really using the rechargeable battery, it would ‘forget’ how to fully recharge.

Today, Apple says of its lithium-ion iPhone batteries, “You can charge your iPhone every night even if the battery isn’t fully depleted.”

Well, that’s progress. So, what’s the problem here?

Should You Charge your iPhone to 100% Each Night?
On the one hand, yes, our friends from Apple say it’s okay to charge up your iPhone’s lithium-ion battery every night.

On the other hand, Apple has now offered a new feature in its iPhone 15 line to limit charging to just 80% to help reduce the drain on battery life.

The reality has always been that full-charge cycles accelerate the eventual reduction of an iPhone’s lithium-ion battery’s lifespan.

In fact, fully charging up and completing discharging your iPhone’s battery… that’s actually bad. Charging up to just 80% will, in fact help your battery last longer.

The 80% Solution
Here’s how you activate the 80% Limit mode:
Click:

Settings
Battery
Battery Health & Charging

Choose between:

Optimized Battery Charging
80% Limit (sometimes it still goes to 100%)
None

Apple’s default setting is – Optimized Battery Charging

The Value of Optimized Battery Charging
So, yes, you can choose the 80% Limit setting, but Apple also talks a lot on its support pages about how useful the Optimized Battery Charging setting can be to maintain your iPhone battery’s health.

How Optimized Battery Charging actually works… I do find confusing. Something about learning algorithms based on your use. The setting doesn’t always get your iPhone’s charge level back to 100%, and it can delay when the actual charging is happening overnight. (I think there could be some borrowed “Flux Capacitor” or “Borg” tech involved. Who knows.)

But it’s all supposed to be good for your iPhone’s battery. (And that’s all that really matters, right?)

Plus, the name implies it’s the best setting. It’s ‘optimized.’ And it’s the default setting.
What more can you ask for?

80% is Technically Better than 100%
So why is there now the 80% setting? Well, it’s not totally clear to me other than charging up to 100% is simply not optimal for a lithium-ion battery. (Yes, there’s some irony here.)

I imagine the 80% solution is technically best for your phone’s battery, but then you’re constantly denying yourself the dopamine hit when you see that 100% glow to start your day.

Optimized 100% is Better than Regular 100%
So ‘optimized’ charging is designed to minimize the inevitable long-term damage of the 100% solution.

Optimize. Yes. That’s the camp I’m in.

Live your life. Minimize the damage.

As nuanced as all this may feel, what is crystal clear is to never go with the third battery-health option – ‘None.’

Then, you’re just charging up… old school. You’ve got yourself the 100% solution with no benefits from optimization. Your iPhone’s battery will flame out (not literally) more quickly.

Optimize Me!
So where does all of this leave us?

Is it bad to charge your iPhone to 100% every night. YES.
Can Apple minimize that problem by optimizing it? YES.
Should you go ahead and keep charging every night in Optimized Charging mode? YES.
Is that better than the 80% Solution? PROBABLY NOT.

But where’s the fun in 80% of anything?
I want 100%!

Plus, I want it to be optimized, even if it’s just a word to make me feel better about making the wrong choice. Well, second best.

Happy charging.

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December 31, 2023

My Biggest Discoveries I Blogged About over the Past Year

Here’s my At Home with Tech year in review. Below are the links to my key learnings and tech discoveries.

So yes, these next few weeks can all be about looking forward. The fresh start. The resolutions. The turning over a new leaf. But I like to think of this time of year as the next chapter that builds on the past. It’s not so much ‘the new’… as ‘the next.’

I try to carry it forward. That way, I can greet these annual cycles with the perspective of my past years’ experiences. Said another way, it’s important to look back as you look forward. Otherwise, a lot can get lost across the years.

That’s why I think it’s critical to package up the story of your past year in an organized photo collection (digital or book) or perhaps an edited video-clips overview.

You might also want to perform a mental review and acknowledgement of your other notable actions and learnings.

Take it in. Then lock it in, or let it go if need be.

At Home with Tech Year in Review

As you know, I document my thoughts on technology and family life each week. So, I’ll follow my own advice and offer this summary of my blog posts that reflect my big learnings across the past year. Please check out the links below that most interest you!

My Growth as a Parent